


Devotion

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bullying, Childhood, Devotion, F/F, Gen, Goddesses, Love, Nuns, Religion, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 22:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11278407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: A sweet tale of an unusual spiritual journey... and a different kind of love.





	Devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariestess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariestess/gifts).



> Dear recipient, I hope you enjoy this extra story I was inspired to write for you!
> 
> Many thanks to my anonymous beta.

Anna was eleven years old when she first heard the voice of the Goddess.

The sad little girl knew without a doubt that the honeyed tones belonged to the Great One, for there was nobody else in sight, and she would have heard footsteps rustling the autumn leaves which were all around on that cold, crisp day if another human being had approached her. Concealed as she was in the small clearing in the middle of the woods where she had come to hide from the rough village children who always bullied her for her shy and quiet ways, with her head buried in her hands and her thin shoulders shaking as she sobbed, there was no one who could possibly have known that Anna was there. 

She heard the voice as if someone was whispering in her ear. 

“Have courage, for you are stronger than they are,” the voice had said. It was a sound too beautiful to be a mortal’s speech; musical and entrancing, it resonated deep within the soul of the wonderstruck child, who looked up with a gasp to see nobody standing next to her at all. But the air was full of bright blue butterflies all of a sudden, and above the forest arched a rainbow where none had been before.

At fourteen, Anna had a vision of the Goddess for the first time.

She was engaged to marry an older boy named Ben; after the customary three years of waiting, she was to don a gown of white and meet him in the holy temple, there to be joined with him in wedlock for the rest of their natural lives. Although she liked Ben well enough, she was not sure if she loved him sufficiently to dwell with him into the twilight years of life and raise a family with him.

As she sat on a chair by the window, gazing out upon the soft white summer clouds and pondering what the future was to bring, she saw the outlines of a kind and loving female face, eyes full of tenderness and long dark hair billowing all around her. The same sweet tones that Anna had heard as a little girl echoed within her mind.

“Go with what your heart tells you to do, not with what your head commands.”

Soon after Anna had turned seventeen, she realised that she belonged to the Goddess.

Mere hours before she was to become a bride, Anna fled her childhood home and took refuge in the little convent that was adjacent to the holy temple. And mere days after she had run away, Anna found herself putting on a plain and simple grey gown instead of the elaborate concoction of white silk and lace she had meant to wear at her wedding, and she stood before the altar reciting the sacred vows of a nun instead of those of a wife.

As Anna spoke the final words that made her vows completely binding, golden light streamed through the stained glass window above her head, and she could see the most colourful and radiant of rainbows miraculously begin to form in the clear spring sky beyond it. Anna gasped as she felt the gentle kiss of an unseen woman upon her parted lips, and exquisite butterflies with powdered wings of blue surrounded her in joyous flight, making her sister nuns cry out in wonder and raptly sing the praises of their Heavenly Mistress.


End file.
